


five days

by ofstormsandwolves



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofstormsandwolves/pseuds/ofstormsandwolves
Summary: When the Doctor is asked to assist on a Torchwood mission, Rose finds herself alone with their three year old twins for what is going to be a long five days...





	five days

“It’s only for a few days,” the Doctor told his three year old twins with a beaming smile. “Mummy will be here the whole time, and you’ll get to do lots of fun things, and you’re going to Nan and Grandad’s Saturday for a barbecue.”

But the twins looked unimpressed.

“Why doesn’t Mummy go?” Arcadia asked, his brown eyes furrowed in confusion. “Mummy works for Torchwood, you don’t!”

The Doctor glanced at Rose over the twins’ heads. She looked a little put-out that the twins would rather she went, but she gave him a small smile. 

“Because,” the Doctor began carefully, “they need my advice on something. And I know I don’t work for Torchwood, but Grandad would like my help. Besides, you two spend enough time with me, you get to spend lots of time with Mummy now.”

“I guess,” Arcadia agreed slowly, and he looked a little wistful. “But Mummy can’t do experiments like you can.”

“I can’t,” Rose admitted from her seat at the breakfast bar, “but I do know how to make a rocket ship out of the washing up liquid bottles.”

The twins’ eyes went wide at that, and they both grinned, turning to their mum.

“Really, Mummy?” Olyesti asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

Rose nodded sagely. “I do. And I bet I can think of some other things I can do that Daddy can’t.”

The twins seemed more than placated by that, and within a few minutes, they were rushing off to begin planning the designs for their rocket ships. The Doctor watched them go, and straightened with a sigh.

“You’re not upset, are you?” he asked quietly as he crossed to Rose’s side.

She gave him a soft smile. “A little,” she admitted softly after a moment. “I know it was my decision to continue working after the twins were born, and I know you wanted to be at home with them. And I wouldn’t change this for the world. What we’ve got- you being a stay-at-home dad and me working at Torchwood-, it works for us. And I know the twins love me. It’s just hard, when they say they’d want me to go away on a business trip rather than you.”

The Doctor smiled gently at that, and hugged her close. “I know. And it’s my own fault, really. They’re not used to me not being around. But I bet, once I leave the house tomorrow morning, they wouldn’t trade you for anything. I know I wouldn’t.”

Rose smiled against his chest.

~0~0~

The next morning, the twins were less than calm. They’d been up since six am, and by the time Jake arrived to collect the Doctor at half nine, Rose felt like she’d been through the ringer. Toys were strewn across the sitting room and out into the kitchen diner, neither child had quite finished their breakfast, apple juice had been spilt across the kitchen floor leaving it sticky underfoot. And somehow, Olyesti had got into Rose’s makeup that morning and had used her very expensive lipstick as eye shadow.

“Been playing with Mummy’s makeup, Oly?” Jake noted with a grin as he stepped into the house.

The little girl nodded sagely, her blonde pigtails bobbing as she did so. “I look just like Mummy,” she told him seriously.

Jake stifled a laugh at that and Rose glared at him. The Doctor arrived downstairs then, suitcase packed and a tired smile on his face. 

“Right,” he told the twins, dropping to his knees for a cuddle, “you two be good for Mummy, and I’ll be back Monday.”

He hugged and kissed the pair of them in turn then, first Arcadia, then Olyesti, taking a moment to bury his nose in their blonde hair and just breathe them in. He eventually let them go, and the pair of them scampered off to carry on playing, not noticing the dampness in their daddy’s eyes. He took a deep breath, straightened, and drew Rose in for a hug.

“We’ll be fine,” she told him gently. “I’ll phone you every evening. I’ve got a few days off work, and me and the kids will find something to do. I’m actually kinda looking forward to it, spending time just me and the kids. I’ll miss you, of course, but it’ll be nice for me to do something with the twins, like you do every day.”

He nodded, and instead of responding, ducked down for a kiss.

And then, there was a shattering noise from the kitchen. Abruptly, the Doctor and Rose pulled away.

“What are you two up to?” the Doctor called warily.

They got no response, but the twins suddenly scampered past them to run upstairs.

“Arc?” Rose asked her son slowly. “What was that noise?”

“It was Oly,” he said quickly, and ran off upstairs as his sister complained after him.

The Doctor and Rose watched them go.

“Still looking forward to it?” the Doctor asked suddenly with a smirk.

Rose watched him carefully, still clinging to his shirt-front. “Just... Promise me you’ll come back safe, Doctor.”

He kissed her again, before pulling away. “I will,” he promised, and picked up his suitcase.

He and Jake headed to the door then, Rose following to wave them off. The Doctor had just stepped out of the house when there was a crash from upstairs. Jake snickered and the Doctor quirked his eyebrow.

“Promise you’ll come back safe, Doctor,” Rose said again, pulling him in for one last peck on the lips. She pulled away and met his eyes. “Because you’re sure as hell not leaving me alone with these kids for more than five days.”

The Doctor grinned, kissed her on the nose, and walked away towards Jake’s car.

~0~0~

Surprisingly, the first day without the Doctor around didn’t go too badly. Despite the broken plate in the kitchen, and the bookcase the twins managed to topple in the study, they managed to have a somewhat enjoyable day. The weather wasn’t too great, so they ended up staying in and Rose taught them how to make rocket ships from the old washing up liquid bottles like she’d promised.

They had lunch while the papier mache dried off, and spent the afternoon painting the rockets and getting paint pretty much everywhere. Rose had saved much of the kitchen worktop by putting old newspapers down, but hadn’t taken into account that her kids would get paint everywhere. Once the rockets had been painted and were drying on top of the newspaper-covered kitchen island, Rose surveyed her two three year olds warily.

“Time for a bath before dinner, I think,” she told them as she took in their paint-covered appearance.

Thanking her lucky stars that they had a big bathtub in their (frankly too big) bathroom, Rose saved time by dumping both children into the bath together. Not that they minded in the slightest. Arcadia and Olyesti happily played with their bath toys while Rose scrubbed their skin and washed their hair, trying to get any and all traces of paint off them.

“How did you get paint behind your ear?” Rose mumbled to her daughter as she started on the girl’s long blonde locks.

The girl just shrugged; too engrossed in the game she was playing with her twin brother. So Rose scrubbed diligently at her daughter’s hair, getting all traces of neon green and bright pink paint from the girl’s hair, and listened with a small smile as her two children chattered and played.

Apparently, the game of the week involved aliens. Really, she supposed she shouldn’t expect anything else from hers and the Doctor’s kids. 

This was the sort of thing she missed, Rose mused, when she was working late at Torchwood filling out paperwork, or out in the field on a case. And just like she’d told the Doctor yesterday, she wouldn’t change it for the world; she couldn’t not work, couldn’t stay at home all day even with the children, but the Doctor relished it because he’d never expected to get a human life, or another family. The Doctor adored their two children, he loved being a stay-at-home dad and looking after them, and he fully supported Rose’s need to work. But she missed things like this, bath time with her two children, and doing arts and crafts with them, and just generally spending time with them.

The game had descended into growling and thrashing and splashing then, as Rose finally managed to scrub both children clean of paint.

“How about pizza for dinner?” Rose asked with a grin as she pulled the plug to drain the bathwater.

“Can we?” Olyesti asked, wide-eyed and excited.

“Mmm,” Rose hummed happily, “as a treat. And maybe, maybe if you two get out the bath and get dressed nicely for me, we can have it on the sofa during a movie.”

The children’s eyes widened excitedly at that, and half an hour later they were on the sofa eating pizza in front of a Pixar film.

~0~0~

The second day started with both children crawling into her bed at just gone half past six.

“What are we doing today?” Arcadia asked even as Rose tried to burrow back beneath the duvet.

Rose squinted at her little boy. “What do you two want to do.”

“Park?” Olyesti suggested as she crawled over to snuggle up beside her mum.

“We can go to the park,” Rose agreed, “but only if the weather’s nice.”

The weather was nice, so Rose took the twins to the park. They had ice creams, even though it wasn’t particularly warm enough for it, and the kids spent ages playing in the play park while Rose watched from a bench. She’d called the Doctor last night; let the twins take turns telling him about the rocket ships they’d made and had even sent him a photo. It had been strange, once the kids were in bed, having no one there to talk to, and Rose had even been tempted to call her mum but she’d stuck it out. It was only a few days, and then the Doctor would be back. Was this how the Doctor had felt, all those times she’d gone away overnight for Torchwood work? Rose hoped not.

“Mummy,” Arcadia asked on the way home, “can we have pizza again tonight?”

“No, sweetheart,” Rose responded calmly, “that was just a treat for yesterday, remember?”

They were halfway home from the park, in a busy London street with people hurrying past them in all directions. Rose watched, faintly amused then, as her three year old son pouted at her, brow furrowed in a scowl beneath his blonde hair.

“I want pizza!”

“Arcadia,” Rose told him, coming to a stop in the middle of the pavement and crouching beside her son, being sure to keep hold of Olyesti at the same time, “we’re not having pizza again tonight, we’re having something different.”

The boy stamped his foot. Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Do you need to go in timeout when we get home?” she asked.

He glared, but said nothing.

“You can’t live off pizza, sweetheart,” Rose continued as her little boy folded his arms across his chest. Her mum always said he was the spit of her when he did that. “So we’re going to go home and choose something else for dinner- not pizza, but something else you and Olyesti would like.”

“Can we have pasta?” Olyesti piped up from beside Rose.

Rose opened her mouth to respond, but Arcadia was already bellowing in protest.

“I don’t want that!”

“But I do!” Olyesti argued back. “Mummy, please!”

Rose was torn then. With both children protesting and stamping their feet she didn’t really know what to do. While she’d been on her own with the twins plenty of times before, of course, usually the Doctor was just waiting at home for them. This time, even when she managed to get them home she’d have no one there to help her. No back-up.

“You both need to calm down,” she told them with a calm she didn’t feel. Thank god for Torchwood field training. “Like I said, we’re going to go home and we’re going to choose something we all want for dinner, alright?”

She ended up having to carry both twins home as they wriggled and bellowed in her arms. By the time they’d both served their three minutes’ timeout (and that was a miracle in itself), they had both tired themselves out so Rose snuggled up with them on the sofa.

“When’s Daddy coming home?” Olyesti asked tiredly from where she was snuggled into her mum’s side.

“Another few days yet sweetheart,” Rose told her, pressing a kiss to her brow.

By the time dinner rolled around, the one thing they could all agree on was chips.

~0~0~

The third day was Saturday, and so Rose took the twins to her parents’ mansion for the promised barbecue. The weather was bright enough and warm enough that the twins and Tony could play in the garden, while Rose and Jackie sat at the patio table and watched Pete set up the barbecue.

“How are you finding it?” Jackie asked her daughter after a long while. “First time without the Doctor around since before you had the twins.”

“I think yesterday was a disaster,” Rose grimaced. “The kids had a meltdown on the way home from the park about what they’d have for dinner.” She sighed. “I managed to get them home and give them a timeout, but... I’ve never had to do that before, Mum. Not with knowing that it’s going to be more than a few hours before the Doctor gets home. Usually when I’ve got the kids on my own for the day, he’s at least home by evening, and if the twins are still being difficult we can deal with them together. But yesterday...”

“You had no back-up,” Jackie said knowingly.

Rose said nothing, and stared out across the garden to where the twins were chasing each other.

“Am I a bad mum?”

Jackie blinked, and looked over at her daughter. “Why would you say that, sweetheart?” Jackie asked. “Just look at the twins- do they look like you’ve not done a good job of raising them? Do they look like they’re unhappy?”

Rose focused her gaze on her glass of lemonade. “That’s the Doctor’s doing, not mine.”

“Parenting’s a team effort, Rose,” her mum responded gently. “Both you and the Doctor put everything into raising those two kids, and they love you to bits.”

Rose swallowed. “But yesterday-”

“Yesterday you had a bad day,” Jackie interrupted. “We all have them.” She let out a weak chuckle. “If you knew how many times when you were growing up that I had days like you did yesterday, thinking I was a terrible mum, thinking I was failing you-”

“You didn’t, Mum,” Rose broke in, head shooting up to meet Jackie’s gaze.

Jackie smiled back gently. “And that’s my point. I still have days like that with your brother, even with your dad here to help. But then I look at you, and I see how you are with the twins, and I decide that I can’t have done that bad a job raising you.”

Pete appeared then, taking a seat at the table. “I’ll just let the barbecue heat up, then I’ll get started on dinner,” he told them. “What were you two talking about.”

Rose flushed red and said nothing, but Jackie clearly had no qualms about sharing their discussion with him.

“Rose is worried because she thinks she’s a bad mum,” Jackie told him. “Which she’s not.” The last was said pointedly to Rose, who focused her gaze once more on her kids rather than look at her mum.

“Finding it difficult without the Doctor around?” Pete asked knowingly.

Rose hummed softly in agreement. “Something like that,” she admitted. “I just constantly feel like my being at work all the time means I don’t know how to be a good mum. I mean, the Doctor makes it look so easy when he’s with them, an’ I’ve never heard him complain they’ve played up for him when I’ve been away on work. Yet less than two days after he goes away they’ve already both had tantrums. In public.”

At that, Jackie and Pete shared a look.

“What?” Rose asked, frowning in confusion.

“That doesn’t make you a bad mum, Rose,” Pete told his daughter gently. “And I think you’ll find the Doctor can find it just as difficult when you’re away.”

She blinked. “He’s never said anything,” Rose told them. “How would you know.”

Again, Jackie and Pete shared a look. “He phones sometimes,” Jackie admitted after several moments, “when you’re away for work. He loves the kids to bits, but when you’re not around he doesn’t really have any other adults to talk to.”

“So he phones you,” Rose stated, torn between being baffled and amused that the Doctor phoned her mother for chats.

Jackie shrugged. “Yeah,” she nodded as Pete got up to return to the barbecue. “Like I said, without you around he doesn’t really have any other adult to talk to when he’s at home. And he finds it difficult when the twins act up. Not even your Doctor can be in two places at once.

Rose turned her gaze back to the twins across the garden.

~0~0~

That night, she phoned the Doctor twice. Once at the usual time for the twins to tell him about their day, and once after she’s read the kids a bedtime story and put them down for the night.

“Two phone calls in one night,” the Doctor teased when he answered her second call. “Aren’t I lucky?”

“Damn right you are,” Rose responded, feeling her lips quirking up into a smirk. “I talked to Mum and Dad today.”

“Well, you would. You were at their place.”

“Yeah,” Rose nodded even though he couldn’t see her. “I was... I was worried, because of yesterday. The whole tantrum thing. Thought maybe me struggling with the twins after only two days on my own with them meant I was a bad mum.”

“Oh, Rose,” he sighed from the other end of the phone. “It doesn’t make you a bad mum. You’re a fantastic mum. Our kids couldn’t have a better mum.”

Rose said nothing, and instead curled up a little tighter on the sofa.

“Even I have bad days with them, Rose,” he told her calmly. “Days when you’re away for a Torchwood mission and nothing I do seems to be right for the kids. Days when they won’t listen to me, when Arcadia constantly asks when you’ll be home, when Olyesti cries because she wanted you to read her a bedtime story and I’m not doing the voices right... Believe me when I say I completely understand, Rose. But it doesn’t make you a bad mum.”

“But-” she began, but was cut off abruptly.

“If I said there were days when I thought I was a bad dad, what would you say?”

Rose blinked. “But you’re a great dad,” she tells him, and the confusion is there in her voice.

“Sometimes I don’t feel like it, though.”

There’s a pause then, a silence that hangs between them.

“Mum says you phone her sometimes when I’m away,” Rose admitted after a long while.

“Yeah,” he replied, and there’s no embarrassment in his tone. “Sometimes I want to talk to another adult, and particularly if the day’s been bad... If I’m feeling how you probably felt last night, I don’t want to call you and burden you with that. But your mum understands.”

“That’s why I didn’t say last night,” Rose told him carefully. “I thought you’d panic, or somethin’. I didn’t want to make you worry.”

“Rose Tyler, I never worry when our kids are with you,” he told her, and she could hear the grin in his voice. “They’re in the safest of hands.”

~0~0~

Day four was filled with heavy rain, so Rose once more kept the twins inside. They played with Lego, did more painting (and more scrubbing and playing in the bath), baked some cupcakes and watched films.

Rose read the children a bedtime story, the two of them in their pyjamas as they cuddled up on her lap and she read aloud from a brightly-coloured book. They dozed off on her too, and it was too sweet an opportunity to miss, so Rose snapped a quick photo and sent it off to the Doctor before taking the kids up to bed.

Jackie phoned after that, enquiring how the day had gone, wanting to know how Rose was feeling and whether she’d spoken to the Doctor at all.

“Yeah, we talked,” Rose admitted, her phone in one hand and a bottle of lager in the other. “An’ I feel better now. Doesn’t change the fact I felt so lost, but findin’ out the Doctor feels the same too sometimes helped a bit.”

She told her mum about the day then, about how she and the kids had done some baking and painting and playing. And before she knew it, it was almost eleven at night and Jackie was talking about turning in for the night.

The bed still felt strangely empty without the Doctor there to share it with her, so when Arcadia woke at just gone two, crying from a nightmare and consequently waking his sister, Rose bundled both children into bed with her.

~0~0~

Day five dawned bright and damp, and somehow the children were both still awake at gone seven. Rose used that to her advantage to cuddle up with her kids a little more before the day started and they were jumping around.

But she must have dozed off, because not long later she could swear she could hear the Doctor’s voice talking in hushed tones.

“Don’t wake Mummy.”

There was giggling then, and scampering feet, and Rose cracked open an eye to check on the twins. The bed was empty, but there was a warm weight at the end of the bed.

“Arc?” Rose called out, her voice croaky with sleep. “Oly? What’re you two up to?”

More giggling, and with a sigh Rose hauled herself into a sitting position. The kids were sat on the end of the bed, playing with bits of Lego and doing drawings. And sitting in between them, cross-legged and grinning, was the Doctor.

“Hello, love.”

Rose blinked. “I thought you wouldn’t be back until this afternoon?” she managed after a long moment.

He shrugged. “Jake and the team no longer needed me around, so I got an early flight back, and got a taxi from the airport.” 

“Bit of a surprise,” Rose said as Olyesti thrust a drawing at her.

“Good surprise or bad surprise?” the Doctor asked, a little nervously.

Rose grinned. “Oh, definitely good surprise!”

He grinned back. “The kids have been telling me what’s been happening while I was away, haven’t you?” Arcadia and Olyesti nodded happily. “And they’ve been telling me about all the fun they’ve had.”

“Yeah!” Olyesti shouted, grinning from ear to ear.

“Bet you hardly missed me,” the Doctor teased.

The twins shared a look. “Well,” Arcadia admitted after a while, “we were busy, Daddy, having loads of fun with Mummy.”

“Oh, I see,” the Doctor told them, mock-affronted. “You were so busy having fun with Mummy that you didn’t have time to miss me, did you?” He turned to Rose. “You missed me, didn’t you?”

Rose grinned at him, and glanced at the kids. “Eh,” she shrugged teasingly after a moment, “maybe a little.”

“Only a little?” the Doctor echoed. “I’ve been gone nearly five days and you only missed me a little? What can I do to make you say otherwise?”

Between them, the twins were giggling, and Rose smirked at the Doctor.

“Oh, I dunno,” she told him. “You’re gonna have to do something pretty spectacular. Me and the kids have been having tonnes of fun without you. We’ve had a great time.”

The Doctor grinned back, before leaning across the bed and kissing her gently on the lips.

“How about,” he said quietly as he pulled away, “I cook us all breakfast? How does a full English sound?”

Rose grinned as the twins cheered excitedly and bounded off the bed.

“Now you’re talking!” Rose beamed at him.

Beaming, the Doctor laced his fingers through hers and pulled her from the bed.


End file.
